Stick to Bricks to protect children from Child Sexual Abuse Material

There has been a lot of coverage on the warning to parents and schools, by the National Crime Agency, of posting images of children. But which demographic is most likely to create Child Sexual Abuse Material? Children.

In fact, despite the alarm bells being rung by the NCA about criminal gangs of adults using school websites to scrape and create AI generated CSAM, a recent study published in the National Library of Medicine found that 86% of CSAM is produced by children.

In the majority of cases, what are they using to create such images? Smartphones.

So why isn’t the National Crime Agency, as part of the recent advice to Parents and Carers on AI Child Sexual Abuse Imagery, also strongly recommending that parents do not give their child a smartphone until they are at least 16?

Smartphones are portable internet connected video cameras and mini-TVs. They are the device facilitating child abuse. The creation of material, the sharing of material and any subsequent further abuse, including sextortion.

Smartphones expose children to the 6 features of “harm at scale” that the NCA and NSPCC identified in May 2026:

• Mass discoverability of children

• Unrestricted contact from unknown adults

• Private or encrypted messaging

• Algorithms that promote harmful and illegal content

• Nude image sharing or streaming

• Weak age checks

Yes, parents and schools need to be warned about their sharing of images online.

But this should also have been the moment that the NCA, and other organisations, stepped up and firmly endorsed a minimum age for smartphones.

Not to do so is to miss the most obvious and effective route to better protecting children. It’s not too late!!

The summer of 2026 could be the worst on record for child safety and wellbeing. The call for better regulation of apps, for better parent understanding, is welcome. But we are so far away from this being the reality on the ground and, until it is, parents need a clear, sensible message, aligned with the precautionary principle.

Parents, make a brickphone the first communication device you give your child. Stick with it until they are at least 16.

To all at the NCA, it’s not too late. You can add to the CSAM guidance or, better, issue a new press release, urging parents to ‘stick to bricks’ and encouraging schools to promote this message before the summer holidays arrive.

The device is the key to an appalling kingdom of abuse. No key, no kingdom.